The present invention relates to a hospital bed and, more particularly, to an improvement in the construction of a lifter for adjusting the height of a hospital bed.
From the standpoint of transferring a patient from bed to bed or allowing the patient to get in and out of the bed, the height of a hospital bed from the floor is desired to be as small as possible. On the other hand, for a nurse or doctor to minister to a patient lying on the bed, the bed height is desired to have a higher level. In order to satisfy these two opposing demands, there is known in the art a structure in which a bed is combined with a lifter so that its height can be adjusted as needed. For the lifter, a vertically expandible and collapsible link mechanism is used, as in an industrical table lifter of the hydraulic type. The link mechanism is actuated by an actuator device such as a hydraulic cylinder so that the bed may be moved up and down. In this system, the link mechanism should be capable of minimizing the height of the bed when the link mechanism is collapsed to its lowermost position.